Kerman · 1919Source note available
The oldest printed witness
The earliest complete printed version located so far, published by D. L. R. and E. O. Lorimer together with a note on Thursday practice among Persian women.
Archive
One story.
Many witnesses.
Sources and traces of Mushkil Gusha are scattered across languages, regions and collections. The archive brings them into view — without forcing them into a single line of descent.
The archive is opening gradually.
The first source notes and comparative studies will appear here step by step. We publish material when its provenance and status are sufficiently clear.
Research correspondence
Institutional research
Our research also involves direct contact with libraries, archives and cultural institutions. The Central Public Library of Kerman has already provided a complete photographic record of a Persian version published in 1395. Archival enquiries concerning the Lorimer papers at SOAS University of London are under way. Further approaches to scholarly and cultural institutions in Iran are being prepared.
Versions and witnesses
Currently under examination
Some are complete stories. Others are oral recordings, ritual traditions, related narrative forms or later interpretations.
Research map
Mushkil Gusha families across Asia
Documented traces and related traditions. The fields indicate research areas, not historical borders or a proven line of descent.
Regions overlap; the map does not assert a complete genealogy.Click a field to follow its source or research note.
Kerman · 1395Source trail available
The story returns to Kerman
Fereydoun Vahman’s Persian edition returns the Lorimers’ Kerman material to print in its place of collection. It is a later republication, not an independent early witness.
Ebrahimi · Iran 2021Open-access study
Many tellings, one social history
Ameneh Ebrahimi examines several Iranian tellings of Mushkil Gusha, with the Kerman account at the centre. She reads the story in the context of vow culture, social hope and the experience of the disadvantaged.
Ameneh Ebrahimi · Socio Economic History Studies · External link
Herat · AfghanistanPreliminary study available
A voice from Herat
A Persian oral telling attributed to Humaira and preserved in the Margaret Mills collection. The preliminary study includes indications about oral transmission and the accompanying votive practice.
Central Asia · Tajik / UzbekResearch trail
Central Asian Bibi traditions
A Central Asian research trail around Bibi traditions associated with the removal of difficulties. Their relationship with the Persian Mushkil Gusha material remains under study.
Parsi · GujaratiRelated tradition
A Zoroastrian sister tradition
Mushkil Asan preserves a closely related woodcutter story within a distinct practice centred on Behram Yazad, prayer, response, offerings and the mirror.
South Asia · UrduOpen-access study
ʿAli, the Resolver of Difficulties
An Urdu niyaz story associated with ʿAli Mushkil-kushā shares striking features with the documented Mushkil Gusha tradition: a poor protagonist, a dream-like encounter, miraculous stones, Thursday remembrance, giving and the obligation to hear the story. The precise relationship remains open.
Hearing Moʿjizat in South Asian Shiʿism · Open-access chapter
Pakistan · UrduDocumented trace
A Pakistan Urdu trace
A documented Urdu trace in Pakistan adds its own regional line to the archive. Its wording, context and relationship with the wider Mushkil Gusha / Mushkil-kushā field remain under study.
Iran · Regional practicesOverview available
Ritual forms
A first comparative view of Thursday observance, fasting, telling, food, almsgiving and the different figures associated with the removal of difficulties.
Transmission and reception
Western transmission and reception
Documented nodes of publication, study, recitation and later reception. The map shows traces and networks, not institutional jurisdictions.
Research map
Western transmission and reception
Documented stations and research regions are shown as fields rather than as a claim of complete organisational descent.
Documented recitation / centre
Omar Ali-Shah network
Idries Shah publication / study
Reported followers / translations
Golden Sufi reception
Paris, the Americas and later European fields remain distinct research trails.Hatching marks evidence, not fixed borders.
Idries Shah · 1968Published version
Idries Shah’s teaching form
A substantially reshaped version in Caravan of Dreams. It became the central published Western form from which later teaching, memorisation and recitation can be traced.
Golden Sufi Center · 2005Sufi reception
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s interpretation
In Moshkel Gosha: A Story of Transformation, Vaughan-Lee presents a thorn-cutter version together with a Jungian commentary — a distinct later reception of the story in another Sufi context.
Tahir Shah · 2007Later retelling
Tahir Shah’s retelling
In In Arabian Nights, Tahir Shah retells Mushkil Gusha within a wider exploration of storytelling and transmission. We treat it as a later family-linked literary transmission, not as an independent early source.
Safia ShahChildren’s edition
Safia Shah’s children’s edition
The Idries Shah Foundation published a newly illustrated edition of The Story of Mushkil Gusha, edited as part of its children’s-book programme by Safia Shah and illustrated by Carol Betera — a new transmission of the story to children.
These witnesses are not presented as stages of one linear development. The archive keeps similarities, differences and gaps visible — and distinguishes evidence, conjecture, reception and experience.
Research in progress
Four ways into the archive
The material can be approached as text, practice, memory and document.
Texts and transformations
Sources, parallels, changes and open questions between versions.
Ritual and practice
Thursday, fasting, food, giving, mirrors, remembering and telling.
Transmission and memory
Personal testimony, learned tellings and movement between places.
Archival traces
Manuscripts, field notes, historical editions, correspondence and recordings.